LONDON (Reuters) - The seeds of the "suicide palm," a newly
discovered and extremely rare palm tree, have arrived in
Britain for urgent study and conservation, the Royal Botanical
Gardens at Kew said on Wednesday.

The tree, whose nickname stems from its habit of flowering
itself to death once every half century, was discovered only
recently on the island of Madagascar.

Only about 100 examples are known to exist of the tree,
which grows to more than 18 meters high over a period of 50
years before bursting into bloom just once with hundreds of
tiny flowers for pollination and then dying.

About 1,000 of the Tahina spectabilis tree's grape-sized
seeds, harvested by local villagers, arrived at Kew's
Millennium Seed Bank earlier this week.

ADVERTISEMENT

The tree's bizarre lifecycle means opportunities to harvest
more seeds are likely to be rare.

"With less than a hundred of these palms in the wild, and
the fact that they flower so rarely, the race is on to learn as
much as possible, and as quickly as possible, about this
spectacular new species," said Moctar Sacande, who heads up
Kew's Seed Bank work in Madagascar.

"Not only is our science team at the Seed Bank studying the
seeds to assess whether or not we can bank them, but we have
also sent seeds to 11 botanical gardens around the world, where
we hope the palm will thrive," he added.

Seeds have been sent to gardens in countries including the
United States, Spain, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and
Indonesia. Palm experts at Kew are also propagating the seeds
for research and public display in the Gardens.

The trees were discovered by chance in a remote part of the
island by a cashew plantation owner and his family.

Its remoteness explains why it had not previously been
noted despite being Madagascar's most massive palm tree, which
can even be spotted on Google Earth.

It towers more than fifty feet above the ground and has
fan-shaped leaves that, at fifteen feet in diameter, rank among
the largest of any flowering plant.